Casting spells yu know are going to fail comes under the same heading as intentionally declaring charges you know you cannot make IMO.

Personally, I doubt I will ever be throwing 5-6 dice at a magic missile. You are just asking for a miscast for spell like chillwind, doombolt or the like. Not very good play I think.

I agree that you should never find yourself where you have extras unless you take a Lvl1 and get 4 dice and don't want to throw 4 dice at her one spell, increasing miscast chance, but then you can't waste them on something else anyway since you can only cast each spell once, but then you just have to eat the hits, b/c you accepted the risk when casting PoD on a Lvl1.
HOWEVER, I disagree that it is like a failed charge, because: charging rules explicitly state you can't do that and if you intentionally declare a failed charge you know it's going to help you, with no downside (unless you're ... slow), whereas attempting to cast a spell at a target you can't reach will help you avoid those hits but you have a chance of a miscast, as well, so there is a downside. Now if you say "I'm going to try to cast this 8+ on 1 die" then that would not be in the spirit of the game, but if it's 2 dice on a spell legally possible (so anything but Kroak's 14+) at a target out of range, well, you're taking a risk. But really, this should not happen to a clever player.

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Mon Jul 14, 2008 6:26 pm

Vorchild

Master of the Red Legion

Joined: Sat Oct 19, 2002 1:06 pmPosts: 7037Location: Land of Chill

decker_cky wrote:

And what's more stupid....loading up your casters with power dice so a single miscast will likely kill all your mages, or hedging a potentially slightly less effective magic phase to avoid accruing any power dice?

While you aren't really minimizing the risk to a given caster of a miscast, yes, by waiting, you are in fact lessening the risk to the magic phase as a whole. I'd say the risk is worth it. That being said, if you start casting on 3 dice maximum, your risk of miscasting is fairly low and you tend to still get most of your spells cast (especially for using 2 dice, obviously). I still say you force your opponent into the tough choice to either get the big dice early or else get less dice with less resistance (which of course has the least miscast potential of them all and the greatest chance of success).

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Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:56 pm

Saedron

Shade

Joined: Sat Jul 12, 2008 3:31 pmPosts: 101Location: Where the streets have no name

Idiot disclaimer... be forwarned

Where does it say that you can't take 2 arcane items on a single character? Is it particular to DE's, or is it hiding somewhere in the rulebook, and I have just overlooked it for the past 8 years of playing fantasy.....?

decker - and what if you then roll up 4 power dice with one spell remainaing? you either use less dice and take wounds, or use all and probably miscast.

Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:59 pm

Decker_cky

Black Guard

Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:55 amPosts: 277

Even 4 dice isn't a 'probably miscast'. But DE will miscast lots. It's the nature of how they've written the magic. You throw 3 dice at lots of things, or 2 at a few and 4 at another, you stand a large risk either way. I'm sure someone will do the odds at some point, but with miscasting, your more likely to take damage from each power die left than you are of losing a sorceress to a miscast. Minimize the dice left, unless you have something in mind for that turn.

Oh, and the inverse save is essential on a supreme sorceress, since she effectively gets a 3+ ward against he power dice biting her.

Tue Jul 15, 2008 12:08 am

Getwisteerd

Highborn

Joined: Mon Jun 26, 2006 1:30 pmPosts: 614Location: The duke's forest (yes that's the name of the town I live in)

Saedron: It's in the main rulebook somewhere. You can only have one item of every item type on a character. I suppose it's at the magic item section of the rulebook .

Saedron - Its in the page of the Big Red Book with the common magic items i beleive, or the one where it describes how magic items work which is the page before i beleive. These pages are IIRC at the end of the magic phase section of the book, just past the 8 lores.

The only items you can have multiples of from the common list is power stones and disepl scrolls. Apparently Dark Elves are now getting some new items which can be used in this way too (null shards, hydras teeth etc)

Hope that helps

Tue Jul 15, 2008 12:40 am

Saedron

Shade

Joined: Sat Jul 12, 2008 3:31 pmPosts: 101Location: Where the streets have no name

getwisteerd and Heartrender - thanks for the info! I had been playing for the past 8 years completely in the dark about that rule! That's gonna mess with my character setups... especially on a lot of my mages....

Intentionally trying to cast a spell you know you can't cast to avoid taking hits from left over power dice is pure and simple cheating. I'm not talking about trying to cast doombolt when a target turns out to be 19-21" away and you legitimately thought it was close. I am saying if you try to throw a doombolt at a target you konw is out of range to avoid the effects of the PoD dice that is just wrong.

Its the same as declaring a charge you know you can't make, hell maybe worse. It is the same as hoping your opponent will just let you shoot at targets 26" away from your rxb warriors. If you know its not legit and you attempt it anyway how is that anything other than cheating?

With me you get to pull a stunt like that once and then you get yourself the reputation that goes with that behaviour.
You have got to have enough personal intergrity to suck it up and take the hits instead of trying to get by with something you know is wrong. Its just not sporting to do otherwise.

We have to remember, we are playing dark elves who may well be willing to do anything to win at all costs, we are not actually evil elves.

_________________To strive, to persevere, to conquer.

Tue Jul 15, 2008 4:05 am

Bounce

Malekith's Best Friend

Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 3:40 amPosts: 1004

It is a lot worse than attempting to shoot at models that are too far away as this doesn't benefit you a lot, same with declaring a charge that will obviously fail. This is only going to hurt you as far as I can see.

On the other hand if you make a mistake and end up with PD left over and no spells to cast, than it will really help a lot to attmpt a spell to save your sorceress from certain death.
2 remaining PD, will wound her on 2's giving her just a 1/3 chance of surviving.

If you cast Dark hand of Death with 2 Dice at something that is 40" away than you have a 1/36 chance of miscasting. And most miscast results won't kill her (At most doing 1 wound)

However fluffwise I can't see anything wrong with my sorceress letting a blast of magic out into the distance to save her own life. So while sneaky I see nothing wrong with this if you accidentally stuff up your magic phase.

_________________"I will embrace death without regret as I embrace life without fear"

I'll probably have 2 lvl2 sorcs.
First I'll cast PoD, either it gets dispelled or not, if it doesn't then I have some more PD, if it does then I will probably blast his ass away.
If I didn't succed in casting PoD then I'll just cast spells normaly and draw some dispels.
If I did succed in casting PoD then I will use the PoD dies first (for not suffering any S4 hits). After that I'll use regular dies and casting any remaining spells.

So if I do succed in casting PoD then I'll just use the PoD dies first for not suffering any S4 hits. I've posted this post because some people rather would wait with casting PoD and then cast it on one die, and I don't think thats so good.

same with declaring a charge that will obviously fail. This is only going to hurt you as far as I can see.

A notable trick is trying to charge the Warplightning Cannon from the Skaven, which has to flee from any charge. As you may well imagine, deliberately declaring an impossible charge would make this piece of machinery utterly useless.

As for Power of Darkness; do you need to keep the dice you gain from that spell seperate, or does it not matter where the power dice come from if you have any left overs?

So to put that in an example, I'd have 8 power dice normally and PoD gives me another 3. If I use those straight away on my next spell and my magic phase ends with a single leftover die, does that mean one of my sorceresses takes a wound?

Tue Jul 15, 2008 3:05 pm

Alandriakh

Trainee Warrior

Joined: Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:03 pmPosts: 29

Pd that are gained from the PoD spell and have not been used by the end of the magic face inflict a str 4 hit on the sorceress that cast the PoD spell. So if u miscast and u have magic face ends, it can be pretty painfull. Dark elves have become powerfull in magic with that spell but with some bad luck ur wizards can turn to ashes from not using a few dice.

A way I like is make use of the sacrifacial dagger, I play with one lvl 2 sorceress,sacrificial dagger and a power stone or dispell scroll (depends a bit). Only condition is though that u shouldn't be afraid to use the dagger and accept to sacrifice up to three models a turn. (not always three models but in like the most needed conditions) Then it's just rolling one dice for lets say PoD and then sacrifice a model to throw another dice. How to live with the guild of sacrificing your own troops. We're dark elves...says enough in my oppinion.

You will clearly need to keep PoD dice seperate from the caster's regular dice otherwise their will be no way to determine whether they have all been used when the magic phase ends.

Druchii casters are certainly more powerful now, or at least potentially so, and that power comes at increased risk. This is as it should be and should lead to some entertaining games especially early on until we get used to throwing handfuls of dice (ouch!). What is really appealing is that when you really need to turn up the heat and get a spell through you will be presented with options that increase your chance of success....at the risk of a substantial cost.

I am going to go with seperate piles and seperate colors of dice to make this even easier. I need some appropriate looking dice. I already use black dice with white numerals as my "bad guy dice" so I'll have to look around for some PoD dice.

I'll probably have 2 lvl2 sorcs.First I'll cast PoD, either it gets dispelled or not, if it doesn't then I have some more PD, if it does then I will probably blast his ass away.

We'll be using the same number of casters, my question back to you is: how hard do you try to get PoD off? 1 die to cast is only a 50/50 proposition, so it's risky to try and get it off. Use two and, if you get it off, the worst you can do is break even. But if you cast it on 2 and it gets dispelled, you really haven't done yourself a whole lot of good. Unless, I suppose, you use the other Sorc to cast it also. Then if your opponent dispels that one, he's likely gonna be nearly out of dice and you've got two left. Which means you should suck out a scroll in the early rounds, and in the later rounds should be able to get off a decent spell a turn.

I just don't think that's the best play. I think it'll be best used later in the phase, after a bunch of dice have been sucked out by other spells. I'm thinking about casting one spell with each caster, then try to get PoD off to use for casting their second spell. I see this as getting off more spells per turn and per game than the other way around.

Tue Jul 15, 2008 5:53 pm

Grogsnotpowwabomba

The Aspect of Murder

Joined: Mon Jun 10, 2002 7:07 pmPosts: 4646Location: Los Angeles

decker_cky wrote:

Even 4 dice isn't a 'probably miscast'. But DE will miscast lots. It's the nature of how they've written the magic. You throw 3 dice at lots of things, or 2 at a few and 4 at another, you stand a large risk either way.

And we will cast with irresistable force alot too. Our magic is probably the highest risk/reward in the game now. I love it...

Exactly how I think it will be used, with two dies casted. If you manage to draw that many dispels that early then you have actually managed something. Later is when you can dominate the magic phase and he doesn't have any scrolls left.

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Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:41 pm

Entreri bloodletter

Assassin

Joined: Mon May 22, 2006 2:13 amPosts: 518

Yeah I like the idea of using the PoD spell at the middle of the phase to keep the magic phase going. It'll be a major surprise for opponents who haven't played against us before.

Tue Jul 15, 2008 9:47 pm

Decker_cky

Black Guard

Joined: Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:55 amPosts: 277

Another thing...you can 'dummy' out dispel dice by not casting PoD until the end. Your opponent doesn't know if you'll succeed or get enough dice, but if you have a 'must stop' spell that you haven't cast, you can make them save dice from easier things to stop PoD at the end of the phase, making them waste dispel dice if you fail. At the start of the turn, they'll be able to see the dice you'll have, so the potential is known.

It'll be a major surprise for opponents who haven't played against us before.

For awhile. Then folks will start to remember, and that will be when it will start to get interesting. But even as opponents learn about our magic phase, they will still have to make some tough choices (as Mordru said). And the more hard choices we force them to make, the more likely they'll screw one up, and the greater our chances of victory.

Wed Jul 16, 2008 1:08 pm

Evilelf

Corsair

Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2002 10:12 amPosts: 78Location: Honolulu, HI

Guys (and gals) gotta tell ya how much I love the idea of this spell! Sure my mages will miscast and get killed by excess PD (I'll mitigate this as much as possible), but my opponents will just go crazy every magic phase due to the hard choices that our list presents them with. "Do I dispell this chill wind on my gun-line or stop this POD? Is he saving PD for Blade Wind? Damn! Punk just sacrificed a model and got off POD! Must stop it but he has 3 more power dice and hasn't cast his Uber spell. Why did that peggy-noble land so close to my mage--is he carrying the Ring of Hotek?!! Where are those assassins? Does he even have any? Mommy!!

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